Man’s Search For Ultimate Meaning

I think I wrote that pretentious bit of claptrap in like fifth grade. How sad and pathetic that it seems to be true.

I read a lot, and my father used to say that people who write stories end up with lives that seem like a story. I have believed that at various points to varying degrees. Being an entertainment nerd and religious person didn’t help – I got into the habit of believing everything fit into a narrative, because all of the famous people I read about had lives that seemed to fit into a narrative because duh, when you write books about them, you have to make their lives into a narrative or it’s not much of a book. So I kept thinking mine would be too. I kept thinking that like my dad, I would grow up, get married, have children, and the circle of life would continue. That’s how God says it will be in every holy book, and that’s how it always is in the media. So that’s what I was expecting.

I don’t think mine will go that way.

I still keep my journal, piecemeal and inconsistently, and at some point, I will compile it. I fantasize that someday somebody will discover it, and that will be my legacy, that at long last, people will see how well I write and I will be remembered as having been here.

There is nothing to indicate that will actually happen.

When my friend and I were talking today, he reminded me that people in entertainment got where they got by making things happen. Those who went the comfortable route, like I have, like my sister criticized me for always doing, never made it very far, but at least they had wives and kids and stuff. I don’t have any of that, and who knows if I ever will? All of this knowledge, all of this writing ability, may never amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. When I’m gone, few will remember or even know that I was ever here, no matter how good an impression I make on certain people I’ve encountered in this life. I don’t know when and if I will get out of this current limbo, and if I do, what then?

I want a job where I get paid to write, whether that’s legal writing, or stories, or blogs, or criticism. I want to write and get paid for it. I think the talent is there. Turning it into something lucrative, however, I just don’t know how to do. But if I want to have some kind of legacy, it behooves me to figure that out.